A week in New Mexico — Cooking up memories on a Breaking Bad tour
Day Two: The Breaking Bad Tour
After a long day of riding and chilling with my friends on the first night, Tuesday arrived. I was tired, but ready to explore the area. I took a much needed shower and got ready for the day with the intention of grabbing some brunch from a place right across the street from my hotel room. However, that plan was quickly squashed because they were closed on Tuesdays. 😭 A little further down the street was The Flying Star Cafe. They served breakfast, and that's all I really cared about. It was walking distance from my hotel, but I decided to ride over there and then head out to check out the places on my list from there.
The cafe was counter service, but you take your number and seat yourself wherever you want to sit. I brought my laptop along so I could check my email and whatnot while I waited for my food. I also mapped out a few of the places that I wanted to check out after I finished eating. It was very obvious that I was near a college, as the place was packed full of young people in study groups. I felt "old" as I sat there checking my email, budgeting (YNAB ❤️), and paying bills.
My first stop was the "Spaceship/UFO House", which was just a few blocks away from where I was at. I stumbled upon this house on Google Maps while I was looking at what was around my hotel. Built in 1984, this is actually someone's private residence. I can only imagine what it's like to live in a house like this. I didn't realize it at the time, but what I thought was just a different house next door is (apparently) part of the same house, which I didn't really get pictures of. It also had an interesting design, but it didn't look connected to this one.
The "Spaceship/UFO House" (Map)
My next stop was Albuquerque's "Giant Red Arrow", built in 1961, which was just up the street from the UFO house. I actually saw this on my way to my hotel when I got off the freeway, so this would be my second time seeing it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get very close to it. It was in the fenced-off parking lot of a closed Whole Foods, which was moved across the street to a new building. I wanted to zip over there, but there was a car sitting idle in the parking lot with SECURITY all over it, so I figured there was no way I could get in there. So I just took some pictures from the gas station across the street while I gassed up.
The Giant Red Arrow (Map)
After I snapped some pictures, my next stop was 🏍️ Cycle Gear. If you recall from my previous post, my ear plugs required the use of pliers to be removed from my ears. While I don't usually wear ear plugs when I just ride around town, I also didn't want to have to worry about it when I did need them. Since there was a Cycle Gear not too far, I figured I'd stop in there and see what they had.
What they had was nothing.
I could have gone to a different store and looked for some of those cheap foam plugs, but I honestly couldn't be bothered at this point. I really didn't want to be hopping from store to store looking for something else, so I said screw it and just kept using the ones I had for the remainder of the trip.
At this point, I figured I would start my little Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul tour. I had added a bunch of places to a list, but I didn't end up hitting all of them while I was there. Some were way out of the way, and I wasn't sure if I would really get any good pictures at some of them, so I did some of the "primary" ones that were close enough to me.
The White Residence
This was going to be the "risky" one. The woman who owns the house has allegedly become quite bitter, and rightfully so. She had no idea Breaking Bad would become as popular as it has, and I think she probably ended up regretting allowing them to film there. There is a famous scene where Walter throws a pizza in frustration and it lands on the roof of the house. Well, people would do this to her house.
Unfortunately, because people are rude and suck, the house now has a fence all the way around it to keep people off the property, and an even taller one at the front entryway. Along with that, there are signs all over that say, "Take your pictures across the street! DO NOT DISTURB US". Since there are plenty of tourists and fans who come by, as well as multiple tour companies who will drive you around in an RV like they used in the show, I'm sure they get a lot of traffic around their house. I had been warned by both locals I had spoken to, and people on the internet, that the woman who lives there will cuss you out and just react negatively in general to your presence.
These are the only photos I took. (Map)
When I arrived, I noticed they had a car in the driveway with the rear hatch open, so I assumed they may have been (un)loading something. I waited for a few and when I didn't see anyone moving in and out, I grabbed my phone to take some pictures. I made sure to stay away and respect that I was visiting someone's personal home and did not stay long at all. It would have been cool to get some pictures of the bike and/or a selfie in front of the house, but I wanted to show them some respect by not bothering them. Since this was mid-day on a Tuesday, I'm sure this was generally a quieter time for them in terms of lookie-loos.
A1A Car Wash
This was a pretty quick stop, since I wasn't about to get a car wash while I was on my motorcycle. 😵💫 What I did not know at the time though was that you can actually go inside and they (apparently) sell some Breaking Bad / A1A-branded merch. I guess I know for next time. I would have loved to have scored an A1A air freshener or something.
— Walter White
Saul Goodman's Office
With Saul Goodman now in prison for the rest of his life, his office was sold to The Bourbon House. Since I didn't feel like drinking at 1pm, I figured I'd just take some pictures and keep on moving.
— Saul Goodman
The Schrader Residence
The Schrader house was in a gorgeous area, located in an upscale neighborhood at the base of the Sandia Mountains. While it was not in a gated community, many of the houses on the route to this specific house had cameras all over them, recording traffic coming in and out. I imagine they get a lot of unwanted traffic through this area now (including myself).
The Schrader Residence (Map)
As you can see from my photos, I once again respected that this is someone's private residence and kept my distance. While I was taking pictures, a guy in an SUV clearly touring the Breaking Bad locations, had a GoPro mounted at eye-level in the passenger seat recording a ride-along style video. He went right to the end of the driveway, stopped for a bit, and kept on going. I took my pictures, flipped around, and left.
The drive through the neighborhood was super nice. I didn't realize how much elevation I gained on my way there. As I was leaving, it was incredible how much of the city I could see.
The rest of the Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul locations I wanted to check out were pretty far, some on the other side of the city, so I decided to call that it for the day for my Breaking Bad tour. Since I had a late breakfast, I decided to skip lunch and head back to my hotel to relax for a bit before dinner time.
While I relaxed in my room, I started planning what I wanted to do the next day. As I was poking around the map, I discovered that there was a road leading up the Sandia Mountains, the mountains that the Schrader house was next to. Google said the ride from my hotel to the top of the mountain would take about an hour, so I decided that would be my plan for Wednesday morning after I grabbed some breakfast.
I was going to dinner with my friends after they were all free. We decided on a place called Sawmill Market, which is a "food hall"-type establishment built in a restored historic lumberyard building with a whole bunch of different vendors inside. It was located right near Old Town Albuquerque.
There were a bunch of different types of food vendors inside. I was in the mood for some sort of pasta and I found Tulipani Pasta, "a tiny pasta shop". I'm a whore for pesto, so as soon as I saw the word "pesto" on their menu, my mind was made up.
After we all finished dinner, we decided we'd head over to the local gay bar for some drinks, which was walking distance from my hotel. I took the motorcycle to dinner, so I was going to ride back to my room and one of my friends was going to drive me over to the bar since I didn't want to ride if I would be drinking.
I don't mind riding at night, but I don't love it when I'm in an unfamiliar area. My ride back to the hotel gave me a little anxiety because of some of the drivers. Main Street has a left lane that sometimes is a bus-only lane. At one of the first red lights I encountered in Downtown Albuquerque, a Chevy Silverado decided to floor it behind me as they were approaching the light, got over into the bus lane on the left, and completely blow through the red light. 😳 I was stunned. Luckily nobody was going across.
I shit you not, only a few minutes later, I had yet another Chevy Silverado behind me, but this time they were enjoying the sound of their super-impressive straight piped exhaust by flooring it at every stop, then backing off, then flooring it, then backing off, rinse-and-repeat. I had to keep tabs on them in my mirrors to make sure they didn't run me over. As soon as I got into the left turn lane and the single forward lane opened up, they passed me at full-throttle. I was very happy to finally pull into the parking lot of my hotel because that ride wasn't the best way to start the night. 😮💨
We ended the night at Sidewinders, the one of just two 🏳️🌈 gay bars in Albuquerque. The other one actually requires a membership which you had to pay for, which... just no. Of course I had a couple Malibu Pineapple's, which is all I seem to drink these days. 🤣 They had karaoke going on, and had some sort of Bingo cards that you could grab that had various songs and genres that you'd mark when played. Of course they had a bunch of the white people favorites like "Livin' on a Prayer" and "Sweet Caroline" on there. (Also, why do people scream, "SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!" during Sweet Caroline? 🤔)
Midnight rolled around and we all headed out for the night. I was planning to get breakfast early in the morning and then head out on my ride up the Sandia Mountains, so I wanted to get some good sleep. And sleep well I did.
That's it for now! This ended up being longer than I expected with all of the Breaking Bad content. I thought I would put all of the Albuquerque content into one post, but I think that would be too long. The next one will cover the trip up the Sandia Mountains, my last day in Albuquerque, and likely the ride from Albuquerque to Glenwood, where I camped. Stay tuned!
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